Respect: Documents of the Crisis

by George Galloway, Salma Yaqoob, Alan Thornett

Respect as it was originally constructed - as an alliance primarily between the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and George Galloway - is long dead. Respect stood on the gains of the anti-globalisation and antiwar movements, and on the fact that the anti-war movement had begun to build among sections of Muslim communities who had not previously engaged with British politics. After the Socialist Workers Party decided to split with Respect late in 2007, it has painted a dishonest picture of what lay behind the division within Respect. It claimed that it was the left in the split and everyone else was on the right (or was naively misguided, which is just as insulting). They repeat their disgraceful attacks on the Scottish Socialist Party, and by implication make comparison between those who continued to support Respect with those in Rifondazione, Italy's Party of Communist Refoundation, who backed then-Prime Minister Prodi in sending troops to Afghanistan. Such comparisons are ridiculous. Disregarding the grandiose comparisons with the splits between the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks for the delusions they are, this 148-page book shows the political positions of those the SWP would paint as "the right". Not all the contributions we print here are from Socialist Resistance supporters. They include Chris Harman, then the central leader of the SWP, and leading figures in the British and international left. But we think and hope that by publishing this collection we can develop an important debate, and thus help to build a socialist alternative to the ravages of war and neo-liberalism.

148 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

George Galloway is a British politician, author, and broadcaster, who has been a Member of Parliament (MP) since 1987 and is known for his anti-war views. He was a Labour Party MP for Glasgow Hillhead, and for Glasgow Kelvin, before his expulsion from the party in October 2003, and his subsequently becoming a founding member of Respect. He served as the Respect MP for the Bethnal Green and Bow constituency (2005 - 2010), and and for Bradford West (2012 - 2015).

Galloway is considered to be quite a controversial politician and is perhaps best known for his vigorous campaign to both overturn economic sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s and early 2000s, and to avert the 2003 invasion of that country, as well as for his speech before the then President of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, in which he appeared to praise the Iraqi dictator, although Galloway actively opposed the regime until the United States-led Gulf War in 1991 and has always stated that he was addressing the Iraqi people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_G...